


Palace as Pink as her Cheeks

by snowydot



Category: Pitch Perfect (Movies)
Genre: Coraline AU, F/F, Fantasy, Spooky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-18
Updated: 2019-09-18
Packaged: 2020-11-02 08:34:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20685455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snowydot/pseuds/snowydot
Summary: The Bellas travel to Ashland and Chloe convinces Beca to go explore an abandoned creepy mansion.





	Palace as Pink as her Cheeks

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kendrxck47](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kendrxck47/gifts).

> This is a gift to my sweet tennis date ❤️ 
> 
> Thank you for everything, everything. ilysb.

It’s not that Beca hates mysteries. 

She hates the thoughts that reach her when she talks about them. That feeling of being aware not everything in this world has answers and that she’s only a teeny tiny dot floating in the space of the universe. Her head spins and she feels overwhelmed by the amount of thoughts and the fact she can’t stop them, desperation filling each cell of her being while she tries to find a fucking answer. 

It makes her wonder and feel extremely small.

And Beca doesn’t like feeling small. She already is small enough.

When Amy excitedly told the Bellas “her people” found a way for them to perform together once more, everybody went to Heaven and came back down again and made sure to find a free week in the middle of July. 

It’s not a competition, it’s just for fun and pure entertainment. Who are Amy’s people, Beca really doesn’t want to know, but she does question why on Earth they’ll have to travel to Ashland, given all the cool places in the United States. 

But of course she ends up packing and going with them, because it’s not like she’s got that many things to do in Los Angeles anyway. 

Don’t get it wrong, Beca’s life isn’t that bad. It’s going pretty great, actually. She’s finally starting to produce music and having people who value her work is great. She’s far from being famous though, but this is something Beca doesn’t really claim at all. 

And she still gets to see Chloe from time to time since they’re both living in California, only separated by a few hours long travel. Chloe’s busy with vet school, but this fact doesn’t make any difference to the way Beca’s heart goes crazy whenever they meet, a feeling Beca was sure was passenger and would fade away as naturally as it showed up. 

Only that it actually got stronger, and most times Beca doesn’t know what to do about it. So she locks the feeling up deep inside her chest in a weak attempt to forget it. 

Their first day in Ashland is messy. They party too hard and end up sweaty and very drunk, which made the second day all about chilling inside the hotel, too much exhaustion filling their bodies to do anything else than lie next to the pool all day long. 

The third day is different though. Each one of the girls find something different to do: Aubrey, Stacie and Emily decide to go on a hike, while Jessica and Ashley prefer to stay around so they can go shopping. Amy and Cynthia Rose go visit the RAD Artist Studios while Lilly... well, no one’s really sure of what Lilly does when they’re not together. 

So Beca is left alone in the hotel, wearing an annoyed expression while Chloe jumps up and down in front of her. 

“Come on, Becs, it’s gonna be so much fun!” She says in a high pitched voice. 

Beca crosses her arms on her belly. “Dude, no. That’s crazy shit. What if we get forever cursed or something?” 

Those words have Chloe giggling and god, how Beca loves that sound. “Nothing will happen, I promise. We can leave whenever you ask. Pretty please?” 

It isn’t easy to scare Beca away, but Chloe is asking for them to go explore and mess up with things that maybe weren’t supposed to be messed up with.

Seventeen years ago, a girl moved to Ashland with her parents to live in the big mansion that is known by the name of Pink Palace. Beca isn’t sure of what happened exactly, but it seems like the house already had a creepy background and the girl found out a little door that took her to an “Other World” with an “Other Mother” who wore buttons for eyes. 

That alone is creepy as hell.

But that Other Mother wanted the girl to stay with her forever, and the girl ended up locking the little door up and throwing the key to a well near the Pink Palace, moving away with her parents after a few weeks. 

The Pink Palace is abandoned now, no one finds enough courage to live there anymore and Beca can totally understand that. 

What she doesn’t understand, though, is the reason why there are people like Chloe, who are interested in the story enough to keep a _journal_ with dates and pictures and facts. 

Beca isn’t interested at all, but Chloe is pouting at her and blinking those beautiful blue eyes that look like hypnotizing shining crystals and makes it impossible for Beca to say no to that face. 

She sights, defeated. “Fine.” She breathes out and Chloe’s already filling her cheek with sloppy kisses. “Dude!” Beca pulls away, blushing. 

And again, it’s not that Beca hates mysteries. 

She only kind of does.

The mansion isn’t in walking distance from the hotel, so they have to take an Uber to get there. Their Uber driver doesn’t enter the Pink Palace, though, he ends up leaving the girls by the end of the street. 

Beca can have a general impression of the area with the short walk to the mansion and she isn’t very pleased. 

There’s nobody else living around, either in the Pink Palace or in the whole street. Beca really doesn’t like to wonder if everybody left because they were scared or if something else happened. The trees across the street are green and have leaves all over them, but the ones surrounding the Pink Palace look dead. The brown, dry twigs interweave towards the sky and Beca has the strange feeling they look like creepy hands in a pray that has never been fulfilled. 

There must have been a trail years before, but without human care nature took over and the moment Beca steps into the grass that is as tall as her knees, she feels the mood changing, as if something heavy fell over her. It looks like Chloe felt it too, because Beca feels her friend tense beside her and fingers being laced with hers. 

And if it was a horror movie, Beca is sure this would be the moment all the viewers would be screaming at them, “Don’t enter the house! Stay away!”, but well, it isn’t a movie. So they keep walking. 

When they reach a muggy path surrounded by hills, Chloe lets go of Beca’s hand so she can check her journal. 

“I think the well is somewhere near, Bec.” Chloe walks away, beating her feet on the floor forcefully. 

Beca rushes to her side. “Be careful.”

“It’s okay, Beca.” Chloe giggles, making fun of her. 

Beca shrugs. “I just definitely don’t want to have to rescue you from the bottom of a fucking well.” She caresses her own arms, as if the act can protect her from the weird place. 

Chloe is a few feet away from Beca now. She is moving her feet in circles, uncovering the muddy floor while searching for the well. Beca remains paralyzed on the very same place, her limbs feel awkwardly tense, as if her bones aren’t strong enough to make her able to walk. 

“Hey, I think I found it!” Chloe’s voice reaches Beca’s ears. 

Only then Beca moves and she’s by Chloe’s side in a blink of eyes. She kneels down carefully next to the place Chloe is taking the mud off with her hands. 

The well’s circumference isn’t huge, but could fit both Beca and Chloe’s body easily. A few mushrooms grow around it, orange and big and Beca’s never seen anything like that before. 

Chloe gets up with her phone in hands and she’s so distracted taking pictures she doesn’t notice a rock behind her feet. She loses her equilibrium but Beca is quicker, lifting both her hands to Chloe’s hip so she can hold her up. 

Their breaths are shallow and their bodies are incredibly close to each other. Beca paralyzes once more, only that this time, it has nothing to do with where they are. It’s just something she realized long ago, but Chloe’s proximity makes her feel so many things, things she certainly wouldn’t feel if it was Aubrey or Stacie. 

Things she almost didn’t feel with Jesse. 

Beca feels arms circling her waist and maybe Chloe’s talking, she isn’t sure. Her mind is busy fighting against the temptation that is not to look at Chloe’s lips as she licks them. 

“What?” She asks after a moment, blinking her eyes in confusion. 

Chloe giggles. “Are you okay?” 

And that’s the moment Beca’s brain wakes up: too much proximity. She pulls away. “Yeah. Why wouldn’t I be?” She turns her head, feeling her cheeks burn. 

“You’re so adorable.” Chloe giggles once more, which only makes Beca blush harder. “Now come here and help me open this thing.” 

The well’s door is heavier than Beca thought it would be. The opening is rusty due to lack of handling and there’s so much mud on it that makes the door even heavier. By the time they get to open it, Beca’s hand is all dirty. 

She places one arm in front of Chloe when she tilts her body towards it, and the motion has Chloe laughing again. 

“I’m not going to jump in there, Becs.” Chloe assures her. 

Beca pulls her arm away. “No, I know. It just looks...” She looks down at the well, not sure if it’s the shadows making her eyes weird or if she can’t see the end of it. “So deep.”

“I know, right?” Chloe stands to take a few pictures before kneeling down again. “They say it’s so deep that if you look up from the bottom you can see stars in the sky even in daylight.” She picks a rock almost as big as her hand and throws it inside the well. 

Beca tilts her head to the side so she can hear more properly. “Did you hear anything?” 

Chloe shakes her head and mimics Beca, inclining her body a little more towards the well. “It’s not possible that the rock is still falling.”

Beca sits back on her heels. “We don’t know how deep it is.” She stands, walking around so she’s behind the well’s door. “Let’s go, Chlo.” She waits until Chloe is standing so they can push the door down, closing the well again. 

Chloe studies its surroundings once more. “Those mushrooms are kinda exquisite but I’m so sure I’ve seen them before.”

“Where?” 

Chloe makes a thinking face. “I think I’ve read about them somewhere, but I don’t remember what they said said about them.” 

They start walking towards where Chloe thinks the Pink Palace is, but the silence feels so heavy Beca needs to keep talking. “So the house already had a creepy past before the girl, right?” 

And maybe that’s not the right thing to talk about to calm Beca’s nerves down, but she loves the way Chloe’s eyes sparkle when she’s talking about something that excites her. So Beca is okay with feeling a bit nervous if she’s getting to hear her world’s favorite voice in return. 

“Yeah. Three kids who lived in the house prior to Coraline disappeared. She had a friend named Wybie and his grandmother’s twin sister was one of the missing kids.” Chloe tells excitedly. 

“When did it all happened?”

“I have no idea when the three kids were taken.” Chloe lifts her fingers up, calculating something in her mind. “Coraline lived there in 2002, but the Pink Palace was built 167 years ago, so just think about all the stories it contains.” 

“So by the time she lived there the house was 150 years old.”

“Yeah, but it still is a lot of time, Becs. One and a half century.” Chloe squeezes her hand and only then Beca realizes they’re holding hands. 

It became pretty natural within the years, walking hand in hand with Chloe. Right now though, Beca doesn’t know who was the one who took the lead and grabbed the other’s hand, but she couldn’t care less. She absolutely loves the way Chloe’s hand fits in hers. 

“Yeah, I know.” She pauses to take a breath before continuing. “But those are only rumors anyway, right? I mean, is there any confirmation that all those creepy things actually happened?” 

Chloe shakes her head and turns to look at Beca as they walk. “No, but why would Coraline make all of this up? It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Starting for her name,” Beca laughs. “What kind of name is Coraline? So terrible.” 

“I’ve read somewhere that it was supposed to be Caroline and her parents just misspelled it.” Chloe giggles. “But Wybie’s name is way worse. It’s short from Wyborne.” 

Beca’s face wrinkles in displeasure. “Oh my God, poor kid. It’s like he’s being asked why he was born. What’s wrong with these people?” She asks, but Chloe doesn’t really answer her.

Not that her question really needed an answer, but Chloe is pretty much frozen beside her. 

“Oh my God, Beca. We’re here!” She exclaims, unblocking her phone screen once more to take pictures. 

And this time, Beca is the one who freezes. 

The house is scarier and way creepier than Beca thought it would be. Maybe at some time in the past it was pretty, but its size and current appearance bring shivers to each centimeter of her body. 

A gust of wind blows bringing leaves with it, as if the place just recognized their presence there.

The paint on the walls is peeled but Beca can still see some traces of color in the front walls, a pale shade of pink, now totally matte and barely visible. And for a moment, Beca can clearly picture in her mind the newly constructed house: the pink walls that were hyped because they were incredibly different and the house’s grandeur.

She almost imagines the first villagers. 

Beca shakes her head, taking the thoughts away from her mind and reaching out to grab Chloe’s once more.

They walk towards the house and only the minute Chloe starts walking downstairs that Beca realizes. 

“Wait,” She exclaims, using her hold on Chloe’s hand to make her turn to look at her. “Are we entering the house?”

“Of course we are, Bec.” Chloe walks back to Beca, standing on the first step. This way she’s a bit shorter, so she circles her arms around Beca’s waist and settles her chin against her friend’s chest. “I promise I’ll protect you.” 

Beca’s breath had quickened the moment Chloe took her by the waist, but having her friend, her  _best _friend — who she’s secretly in love with for God knows how long — so close to her breasts makes Beca’s interior burn. 

“Okay, okay!” She says, not really agreeing on entering the house but anything to make Chloe walk away from her. 

And Beca’s still shocked enough to stay in the same place until Chloe opens the door and calls for her, walking downstairs only once her breath is normal again. 

“Oh, God.” Chloe exclaims as soon as they enter.

In the dark and humid living room, the musty smell is strong and heavy enough to bring tears to Beca’s eyes. She blinks several times to try and stop the burning in her eyes and reaches to her phone in her back pocket. She turns her phone lantern on and the light falls against a framed picture on the wall.

Beca swallows, taking a few steps to approach it. Her eyes grow as she takes the image in and Beca can’t help the laugh that comes from deep inside her. She tilts her head back in a hearty laugh, bringing a hand to her mouth to muffle the loud sound. 

Chloe is by her side, looking at her with a confused expression. She studies Beca, holding her upper arm. “What?” And seeing Beca like that is so rare Chloe can’t help but laugh too, more curious than ever about the reason behindit. “What is it?” 

Beca brings her head back again, wiping her eyes to clean the tears that came again with how hard she laughed. She points out to the picture.

There are two old, blue eyed women. The tall woman is white haired and the smaller one is ginger. “They totally look like you and Aubrey in the future.” 

“Beca!” Chloe says in a high pitched voice, slamming Beca’s arm playfully. “This is not funny!” But then Beca is laughing again and Chloe can’t do anything but laugh too, intoxicated by the sound. “You’re the worst.” She starts walking away to keep exploring, but Beca reaches out and grabs her arm. 

“I’m sorry but that was the first thing that came to my mind.” Beca breathes fast, still giggling a bit, but trying to recollect herself. “Okay, so this is where everything happened?” 

“Hm, no. This is the house where those two ladies in the picture lived, April Spink and Miriam Forcible.” Chloe answers distracted, studying the small room. “I just don’t understand why they left that picture behind.”

“Maybe they left in a rush and ended up forgetting it?” Beca suggests but Chloe’s face shows she doesn’t buy it.

“Or something _forced_ them to leave.” Chloe doesn’t look at Beca as she talks, which Beca is thankful for because she’s sure the intensity on Chloe’s eyes would make her even more scared.

Beca slowly moves around the tiny room to explore by herself. “What’s the thing with that Other World?”

“The rumors say it was always night in the Other World and that it was a kind of world Coraline wanted it to be, you know?” Chloe explains. “She was very spoiled there, the Beldam would cook banquets for her, give her clothes and all the attention she didn’t have in the real world.” 

“Is Beldam the Other Mother?” Beca asks as she touches the dusty shelves on the wall. 

“Yeah, it was the way the ghosts of the three kids called her.”

Curiosity fills Beca’s chest. “What was she like?”

“They say she was like a spidery figure with needles for hands and buttons for eyes.” Chloe tells Beca while she looks for any clue on the few furnitures left behind. “For the kids to stay there forever they would have to let the Beldam take their eyes off and replace them with buttons, which I never really understood. I mean, why did she want their eyes?” 

Beca looks up at the sound of Chloe’s question. Her eyes fall in her own reflection on the dirty window, a dark, creepy version of herself looking back at her. 

She tilts her head to the side. “I don’t think she wanted their eyes.” Beca watches Chloe’s reflection move to look at her through the window. “Aren’t eyes the window to the soul? She didn’t want their  _eyes_, Chlo. She wanted their  _souls_.”

“I... wow, Bec.” Beca can hear the surprise on Chloe’s voice. “I’ve never thought about it like that. But if that’s the case, why didn’t she just take their eyes right away?” 

Beca studies the affectioned away Chloe pulls both her arms so she can look at her and it’s just _so_ obvious Beca doesn’t know how Chloe haven’t noticed yet. The way her palms are sweaty and her heart beats crazily. “Because she needed their love. I mean, our souls are happier and more powerful when we’re loving, right?” 

Chloe doesn’t say anything. She looks frozen in time, both her hands still touching Beca’s arms without any strength at all, just as if she needed to touch Beca to make sure she’s still standing. Her eyes scan Beca’s whole face, but the reason why Beca doesn’t know. There isn’t anything on Chloe’s expression to give Beca any clue about what she’s thinking.

Or feeling. 

“Chloe?” She calls. And then her friend wakes up.

She licks her lips and turns around, walking away from Beca. “Yeah, I think you’re right.” And her voice is so low Beca wouldn’t have listened it if she wasn’t waiting for her to say something.

Her legs feel weak when Beca replays the moment inside her head, wondering if it was just her mind playing with her or if Chloe looked down to her lips before pulling away. Maybe it means nothing at all, but Chloe is weirdly quiet and Beca needs her to talk, no matter if it’s about that damn story. 

“So, how did the girl scape in the end?” She asks, carefully watching Chloe’s reflection on the dirty window.  
  


“The Beldam loved playing games, so she dared her. Coraline had to find the eyes of the three taken children.” Chloe explains, excitement filling her voice once more as she takes many pictures with her phone. “But Mrs. Spink and Forcible, who lived here, were the ones who helped her. There were three, like, bowls, I guess, filled with old toffees or something. They made a tiny thing with that, it was like a triangle and when Coraline looked through it, the Other World would be all black and white and the only colorful things were the kids’ eyes.”

“What?” Beca asks confused, but when she looks down she realizes the three sparkling things in front of her. “Wait, bowls like these ones?”

Chloe literally runs to her side. “Oh my God!” She kneels down to look at the bowls without touching them. “Look, there are three dates there! What do you think they mean?”

Beca kneels down beside her to take a look at the dates. “Wow, that’s pretty much time! But wait, you just said the ladies helped the girl, right?” Chloe nods, looking at her expectantly. “We don’t really know how old they were or how much they knew about the stuff that happened, but since the house is pretty old... what if these dates are the dates the three kids were taken?”

“Yeah, I mean, if the house was 150 years old back then, it means it was build in 1852 and-“

“It matches perfectly!” Beca interrupts. “So, the first kid was taken in 1921, the second one in 1936 and the grandmother’s twin in 1960.” 

“Wow,” Chloe stands. “Somebody’s pretty excited about this story, given they didn’t wanna come.” Chloe smirks down at Beca, who rolls her eyes. 

“Shut up.” Beca replies with a half smile. “Do you want to see the girl’s house or not?”

She gets up and walks toward the door, opening it and waiting until Chloe passes through. “Let’s go, Sherlock.” Chloe smiles as she walks out of the house and up the stairs, jumping two steps at the time. 

“The only thing I don’t understand yet,” Beca starts as she climbs the stairs and reaches Chloe, instantly walking side by side with her. “Is what the Beldam wanted the kids’ souls for.”

“I don’t think this is the hardest part to understand, Bec.” Chloe says when they reach the front door. “The Other World was magical and illusionary, so the Beldam only created the things she wanted the kids to see. And probably the magic came from the souls, I guess. She needed them to create her world and, well, to stay alive. So she made those dolls to spy on the kids and find out what kind of world she had to create.” 

“But she didn’t have any souls before she took the first kid, in 1921. How could she create anything without magic?” Beca stops and analyses a new thought that just crossed her mind. “Unless...”

“Unless...?” Chloe encourages her to keep going.

“She had button eyes as well, right?” Chloe nods. “There’s still a huge gap of sixty-nine years between the time the house was built and when the first kid was taken. So what if she took her own soul to create the world for the first kid?”

“That’s so creepy, but makes sense.” Chloe approaches the front door. “Gosh, my body’s full of goosebumps.”

“Yeah, mine too.” Beca answers, knowing her goosebumps have nothing to do with the place since a long time ago. “Let’s go.”

Beca opens the door and the room she’s faced with is no different than the previous one. It’s humid and bad illuminated, only that it’s way bigger than the tiny room they were before. 

Chloe enters the house, saying something about going to look for the door and Beca thinks about how funny the whole situation is,!because if any of the girls had asked her to go and explore an abandoned mansion with a lot of creepy rumors about it, she would have said no without second guess. But then Chloe asked her and here she is, not only entering these stinking places, but theorizing  about the story.

She realizes Chloe is nowhere around and enters the house, leaving the door open due to the little light it brings to the house’s interior, even though it’s not enough. 

The Pink Palace is incredibly dark inside.

Beca breathes in shallow gasps as she walks further inside, occasionally stumbling in blankets and random objects, probably left behind by homeless people who stay in for shelter to the cold and the rain. 

“Chloe?” She says to the shadows, hearing her own voice echoing back to her. 

“Here!”

Beca follows the sound of Chloe’s voice and finds her friend looking down at her own hands with an amused expression. 

“What happened?” 

Chloe turns to look at her and Beca is so focused on her face she almost doesn’t notice the tiny object Chloe lifts to show her. 

A key. 

A single, black key.

It’s not like it’s a big deal, Beca has seen a lot of keys in her life. Why would it mean anything? But this one has a black button on it. So of course it  _does_ mean something.

“I don’t understand.” Chloe whispers even though they’re alone. Maybe she’s scared the walls can listen to her. “They say Coraline threw the key into the well. How could it be here?” 

“Where did you find it?” 

Chloe points to a tiny bolt on the wall. “Up there.”

“Well, it could be just a fake key someone made to mess up with visitors.” Beca answers louder than she was supposed to, as if she needs to hear it to try and convince herself that it doesn’t really mean anything. 

Chloe shrugs. “I don’t know.” She grabs Beca’s hand and pulls, walking towards the nearest door. 

They find themselves in the living room, looking directly to the famous little door. 

It’s smaller than Beca expected it to be and she freezes once more, feet glued to the floor while Chloe walks around, taking pictures of every single thing once more.

“Look at that,” Chloe points to a painting on the wall. “Do you think it belonged to Coraline’s parents and they forgot it when they left?”

Beca approaches the painting and stops  beside Chloe. 

There’s a blonde boy on it. He’s formally dressed, his clothes are dark blue and his eyes look incredibly sad as he looks down at the scoops of his ice cream on the floor. 

“Hm, I think there’s no way this painting is from 2002.” Beca says. “I mean, his clothes look super old.” 

“Yeah.” Chloe murmurs distractedly as she photographs it. “Come on.” She says, pulling Beca’s hand once more until they’re both kneeling in front of the small door.

Beca feels as if her heart stops when Chloe pushes the key into the lock and her wrist twirls. And Beca doesn’t know what she expected to find behind the door, but she’s sure she didn’t imagine a tunnel. 

A brown, dirty-looking tunnel is ahead of them. It’s filled with children toys all around and spiderwebs on the corners. It’s different from everything Beca has seen before and still, it looks vaguely familiar. 

And then she realizes, eyes growing wide in surprise and something else.

“Doesn’t it look like the well?” She asks, turning to look at Chloe, whose face is radiant as if she’s just realized something too.

“I just remembered where I saw those mushrooms that were around the well!” Chloe exclaims, excitedly. “They’re known as ‘fairy rings’ and they usually grow in magical places.”

Beca frowns, confused. “You mean you think the well is a magical well?”

“Okay, listen,” Chloe starts and pauses. She seems to think for a while before going on. “What if back in 1852 this mansion was built for a classy woman. There was a well up the hills and she was curious about it, but wasn’t so careful and ended up  falling  into it. What if at the bottom of the well there wasn’t any water, but a place she could have power over? There wasn’t any way back to this world and the years were passing by, she grew older and by that time she couldn’t leave at all because she would die instantly.” 

Chloe can’t stop talking. Beca can only watch as her best friend gesticulates way more than she usually does, paying attention to each and every word she says. 

“She took her own soul and discovered the magic, but it wasn’t enough to keep her alive forever. So in 1921 she made the doll to spy on the kid who lived here and make a world they would love, she created a portal through this tiny door and invited the kid in. She made them love her and when their soul was powerful with happiness, she took it away.” 

Beca blinks, mesmerized with Chloe’s theory. 

“So... you’re saying you think the well is a portal, too?”

“Beca! That’s why they say you can see a sky full of stars even in daylight if you look up from the bottom of the well.” She says and goes on when Beca tilts her head to the side in confusion. “Because there  _isn’t_ day in the Other World. There’s only night. And this!” Chloe points to the black key. “If Coraline threw the key in the well, it went directly back to the Beldam’s hands.”

“Oh.” Beca breathes out, realizing it totally makes sense. “You’re not thinking about entering it, are you?”

But she asked too late.

Chloe’s already crawling inside the tunnel and towards the other door by the end of it. So Beca is quick on crawling inside it too, because there’s no fucking way she’s staying behind alone, even though her brain screams at her to not enter it because she’ll sure regret it. 

She sits back on her heels and Chloe opens the door.

Somebody said once that the fear of danger is way worse than the danger itself. Beca isn’t used to that feeling, but the amount of fear she feels right now is worth for all the times in her life she’s spent without feeling it. 

There’s a knot on her stomach, making her belly tense and she thinks she’s gonna throw up. Her hands are shaking uncontrollably and maybe that’s why she reaches out to grab the hem of Chloe’s shirt forcefully, twisting it around her fingers. 

“There’s nothing here.” She hears Chloe’s whisper. “It’s only a blank void with some black- oh my god! It’s a huge spiderweb!”

Beca can deal with a huge spiderweb. Shereally can. But when she tilts her body forwards and her eyes catch a glance of the blank space, she feels her body shaking. She stops in the middle of her movement, trying to stay as quietly as possible. The hand Beca uses for support is vibrating, as if there’s a phone receiving a call beneath it. Only then she realizes it isn’t her body feeling weird.

The tunnel moves around them. Its walls are shaking and vibrating, going up and down, almost as if it’s alive and _breathing_. 

As if it knows they are there.

The fear grows in Beca’s throat and she feels like suffocating. She tilts her head to the side to look at Chloe and ask for them to leave, but her eyes land on the object beside Chloe’s body.

She blinks several times, trying to adjust her eyes to the poor light. 

It’s a piece of clothing turned inside out. 

A piece of clothing that looks exactly the same from the boy on the painting.

Before Beca’s mind can acknowledge what it means, her hand is reacting and pulling Chloe’s right arm desperately, somehow dragging Chloe backwards with her until they’re out of the tunnel and running away from the house. 

And she doesn’t know what she’s thinking when she climbs the stairs outside the Pink Palace, resulting on another door and a full look to the backyard. She’s gasping uncontrollably and Chloe hugs her, there’s nowhere else to run. But it’s not like there is somewhere else Beca would want to go but Chloe’s arms.

“It’s okay, Bec.” She hears Chloe’s whisper into her ear.

Beca didn’t realize her eyes were closed until she opens them, looking down at the backyard between Chloe’s curls.

And maybe she’s so scared her mind is making things up, but the backyard forms a monstrously creepy face. 

She pulls away from Chloe and tries to point down so her friend can tell if it’s a face or she’s really crazy, but Chloe’s eyes are on her. And for the third time on the same day, they’re holding each other affectionately, looking into each other’s eyes and their bodies so, so close.

Beca looks up at Chloe’s flushed cheeks. 

“It’s the color of your cheeks.” She says out of nowhere and feels dumb, wanting to take her words back. 

Chloe tilts her head to the side. “Uh?”

Beca closes her eyes, taking a deep breath. “The Palace. It’s the color of your cheeks when it’s too hot outside or when you blush.” She says quickly, in a single breath.

She expects Chloe to laugh at her and tell her she’s silly or stupid. But when Beca opens her eyes, Chloe’s face expresses affection. Love.

And in the end, Chloe doesn’t laugh and call her stupid.

She leans in and kisses Beca. 

It’s only a peck, as quick as a blink of eyes. But when Chloe pulls back, Beca chases her lips again. 

It’s not a made-in-Hollywood kiss, with a breathtaking view and confident moves. It’s soft, investigative, decent somehow. They take their time to get to know each other’s mouths and make sure the angle is good, tangling their tongues together, their lips parting to catch air only to meet again.

It wasn’t planned. 

There aren’t people cheering them or birds singing in the sky. There isn’t a promise of what tomorrow might bring for them or any answer to their questions.  There is a dusty floor beneath their feet, a creepy backyard behind them, mud on their hands  and a thousand secrets being shared in this silence.

And with all these creepy mysteries the world carries, Beca is sure love is the greatest one yet. 

She pulls back, smiling and out of air. “Let’s get out of here.”

She takes Chloe’s hand as they walk downstairs, not wanting to stay on that place for one more minute. Beca feels in her heart they’re not safe there.

Or alone.

**Author's Note:**

> This was based on the book “Coraline” (2002) by Neil Gaiman, on a few videos from the YouTube channel “The Theorizer” - his channel is amazing, y’all should check it out! - and from theories I made myself with my friends.
> 
> I know this story is very different, but I got awkwardly excited about writing it and I hope you liked it, too.
> 
> Thank you for reading ❤️


End file.
